Today we have planned a long day hike of more than ten miles to the top of Pine Mountain. But first we have to get to the trailhead which itself is a challenge as it means driving about 20 miles of dirt roads, some well graded and some less. At least the drive is scenic with some nice views of the desert while squirrels are watching us carefully.
At the trailhead it is time to decide on which loop to do or whether we will do an out and back. We decide, cowardly or prudently depending on the viewpoint, to not decide now and wait to reach the top before deciding on a return trail. And with that “decided” it is time to start on our hike.
The trail we choose is relatively flat in the beginning and is following a creek. This makes for a nice hike until we finally have to start the climb towards Pine Mountain.
The climb is strenous but we make it to the saddle where we are greeted with some excellent views all around us.
The saddle is quite flat and the going is fast while keeping an eye on the stones embedded in the trail that try really hard to break our ankles as we are distracted by the views.
The top itself is not that impressive but it has multiple markers confirming that we have reached the highest point on our hike, yay!
In the end we decide to descent via the same trail as it is getting dark and we are not sure about the state of the other trails. We arrive at the car long after it was dark and then we still have lots of dirt road driving back to the interstate and civilization. We make it fine though without any crazy mammals jumping in front of the car and then soon enough we are home tired but happy.
